Gravestone of the Day: Abigail W. Wood

Abigail W. Wood, Nemasket Hill Cemetery, Middleboro, MA, 1854

Sacred to the memory of

ABIGAIL W.

Wife of Horatio G. Wood

& daughter of Thomas &

Abigail Weston.

Born Mar. 15. 1801.

Died Jan. 7. 1854.

AE. 52 y'rs 9 mo's & 22 days.

[verse illegible]

This stone has a very strange embellishment. I wonder whether this recess once held a photograph of Abigail Wood. I've seen photos on gravestones from the end of the 19th century, but never as early as the 1850s.

Close, But Not Quite

This week, Andrew Sullivan published a 19th-century photo (c. 1870s) submitted by a reader who claimed that it depicts "a would-be transsexual." The person in question (far left) has not been positively identified, but he/she has short hair and the photo is labeled, "Howard."

Another reader wrote in to make the eminently reasonable point that we should not jump to conclusions when we view historical materials with 21st-century eyes:

Sometimes viewing things through a 21st century lens can be very misleading. I think there is a pretty good chance this young man is just a late bloomer and not a transsexual.  Most noticeably, he does not appear to be making any attempt to actually look like a girl.  He's just in a dress.  Of course I may be wrong, as I'm not an expert on the history of the practice of breeching, but I remember seeing pictures of my grandfather in a dress when he was at least five or six and nobody assumed he was a transsexual.

Close, but not quite.

First, dresses were for children — boys were breeched when they were kindergarten age. The person in the photo is an adolescent, not a child. Victorian boys sometimes wore military-style tunics over blousy pants until age 10 or 12, but this person is wearing an adolescent girl's dress.

Second, the reader is wrong when he/she says that there is no "attempt to actually look like a girl." As we've seen before, hair parted in the center is a strong indicator that the subject is female. The other adolescent in this picture has a more cutting-edge hairstyle: bangs. The prop, a parasol, is also a strong signifier of femininity.

The second reader makes a good point about the conclusions drawn by the first, but his/her supporting evidence falls short. Still, I am inclined to be skeptical about the possibility that the photo depicts a young boy. The original poster just makes too many assumptions. For instance, the person on the left looks like a boy to us because he/she has short hair. Yet, Victorian girls sometimes sported brutally short haircuts, particularly when they were recovering from serious illnesses. When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras.

Could this be a photo of a boy in a dress? Sure. But I wouldn't bet on it.

Restoring Daguerreotypes Digitally

Cincinnati, 1848, Cincinnati Public Library

Pete's friend, Ross, is getting his Ph.D. in computer vision at the University of Rochester. One of his recent projects involved magnifying and restoring a series of daguerreotypes taken by Charles Fontayne and William Porter on September 24, 1848 in Cincinnati. Strung together, the daguerreotypes show two miles of the city's waterfront.

A story about the restoration project appears in this month's Wired magazine. The article and images are available online — I highly recommend them. The level of detail they were able to recover is truly amazing.

Black and WTF

Visit Black and WTF for a collection of strange black-and-white photographs.

Thanks, Mom!

Beware the Tassel

This daguerreotype (ca. 1855) of George Leverett Stowell is part of the Library of Congress' American Memory Collection. If you click through, you can view over 700 early daguerreotypes in their online exhibit, America's First Look Into the Camera. Be careful, though. They might force you to wear a monkey-armed coat and a hat left over from the BPOE parade.

In Which a Classy Hat Brightens Up a Dull Backdrop

According to the Duke University Digital Collections, Hugh Magnum was an itinerant photographer who carted his mobile portrait studio all over the upper South between 1890 and 1922. Some of the photos in the collection show his outdoor setup. The juxtaposition between this little girl's elaborately trimmed hat and her makeshift surroundings struck me as particularly stark.

Emma and Judy

I apologize for the lack of new posts lately. Gravestones usually get pushed to the back burner during this time of year.

In our family, this hidden week between Christmas and New Year's is often devoted to working on family history and going through old photographs. This year, I've been helping Pete's mom scan several hundred photographs from the Pownall family (Pete's paternal grandmother's family).

There are plenty of wonderful photos in the set, but by far my favorite is this picture of Emma Mathilde Rathke Pownall (Pete's great-grandmother) holding her daughter, Judith Jean (Pete's great-aunt). Judy was born in November of 1915 and her mother died in March of 1919 while giving birth to Pete's grandmother, Amy. In this photo, Judy is almost 2 years old, Emma is not visibly pregnant, and they are outside without coats, so I think it was taken in the late summer/early autumn of 1917.

We have boxes and boxes of studio photographs of this generation, but few candids. Though this picture is posed, you can't pose the smile on Judy's face. It's tragic that these two little girls grew up without a mother and heartbreaking to find a photo of their happiness before it was shattered. Still, it is a lovely photograph and I will be making a copy for myself, even though I'm only associated with them by marriage.

Emma Mathilde Rathke Pownall

1893-1919

Judith Jean Pownall

1915-2005

In a good hat!

Amy Dolores Pownall

and

Judith Jean Pownall

Merry Christmas Hat

Duke University has one of the best digital photo archives around. One of the most interesting collections in the archive chronicles the photography of Michael Francis Blake, an African-American photographer who operated a studio in Charleston, SC between 1912 and 1934. The collection contains many photos of children, including this sweet little girl with her velvet coat, bonnet, and giant doll (also in bonnet).

10 Gallon Hat, 2 Gallon Head

Is he planning to wear that hat on his entire body? He is just too adorable with his little pout and his overlarge tunic and standing on that chair.

via VIA

Not a Hat

While I was looking for more daguerreotypes of kids in hats, I came across this image in the online collections of the George Eastman House. The little girls are hatless, but check out that farmer's tan!

Usually, 19th-century portraits show children dressed within an inch of their lives, but this photograph was taken by Julia Margaret Cameron, whose artistic portraits are rarely so stiff or formal. The religious overtones of this portrait cast the children as cherubs, saints, or the Christ child, but the little one's sun-darkened arms make it immediately clear that she belongs to earth, rather than to heaven. It's a lovely image.

Visit the George Eastman House website for more photos by Cameron and other famous photographers of the 19th century.

This Hat is Brought to You by the Harvard Theatre Collection and the Number 3

Young Irving Selden and his magnificent hat.

See this and many other unusual portraits from the Harvard Theatre Collection here!

A Tribute to Robert Burns?

This is Edward Waldo Emerson, youngest son of Ralph Waldo Emerson. He seems unimpressed with his little Glengarry cap. Not too fond of that basket of lettuce, either.

via VIA

Red-Tailed Hawk on Campus

I wish I could carry my big camera around campus on a daily basis, but I can't manage it and my computer at the same time. That means I have only my non-zooming cell phone to capture fun things like this red-tailed hawk. There is a pair of hawks on campus — they are always screeching, but very rarely perch so low to the ground.

I would have had an amazing pic if I had had my Nikon. Perhaps I need a mid-sized, mid-powered option.

Treasure Trove

All lovers of kids in hats should go immediately to photo_history's Flickr photostream! I have already spent more than an hour flipping through the hundreds of beautiful daguerreotypes there. If you do not click through, this little girl will pout at you with her chubby, chubby cheeks and then dispatch her casts gloves to track you down and drag you there.

Addams Family Hat

I dedicate this hat to my mother, who loves 19th-century portraits in which half-hidden monsters mothers steady their floppy offspring for the camera.

I think this hat thing needs to be a weekly feature.

via VIA

More Overdressed Kids in Hats

I have about a hundred of these. Poor little 19th-century kids. I'd probably be pursing my lips if someone made me wear that fetching little collar when I'd rather be making mud pies.

More available via Harvard VIA.

Nice Hat, Kid

Someone in this photo is a teeny bit overdressed:

More adorable kids in hats@ Harvard Visual Information Access.

Boy or Girl? A Public Service Announcement

Until the middle of the 20th century, young children in Europe and the United States regularly wore dresses, regardless of sex. Many modern Americans are aware of this tidbit of sartorial history, but find it amusing or baffling. When I was looking for a digital image of this Winterhalter portrait of Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, and their five oldest children, many of my Google hits contained comments along the lines of "Two of the kids are boys!?!?"

Yes, two of the children are boys. From left to right, this portrait shows Alfred (b. 1844), Edward (b. 1841), Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, Alice (b. 1843), Helena (b. 1846), and Victoria (b. 1840). Before WWII, most European and Euro-American boys wore skirts until they were "breeched" around age 5-6 (sometimes as late as 7-8).

If you looked at Alfred and thought he was a girl, don't worry — lots of people have trouble telling. Luckily, my early years as a Civil War reenactor and historical costume enthusiast have armed me with some tips for deciphering mid-19th-century images and I am happy to pass them along to you.

The most reliable way of identifying the sex of a child in a mid-19th-c image (1840ish-1870ish) is the hairstyle. As a general rule, boys' hair is parted on the side or swept up in a topknot, while girls' hair is nearly always parted dead-center. Take another look at the portrait — the little princes have side parts, the princesses have center parts, and the baby doesn't have enough hair to tell.

Here are some examples from Harvard's Houghton Library:

Girls:

Boy, Boy, Girl, Boy:

(Adorable) Boy, (Adorable) Girl:

Now that we've established a pattern, we can look at some ambiguous images:

Boy or Girl?

side part = boy

Boy or Girl?

center part = girl

Boy or Girl?

top knot = boy

Boy or Girl?

boy on left, girl on right

If you still can't tell the difference, don't feel bad — whoever catalogued these pictures for Houghton can't tell either. Nearly all of the boys under the age of five are misidentified as girls on Harvard's VIA site:

Yet, when we look at pictures with identified subjects, the pattern holds firm:

Ellen Tucker Emerson:

Alice Howe Gibbens James and Mary Sherwin Gibbens:

Tad Lincoln:

It's not a perfect method — for example, the Davis boys have wonky center parts — but it's a good starting point.

Other tips:

• Props: Is the child holding a doll, needlework, or a flower? It's probably a girl. Is it holding a ball, whip, dog, or military accoutrement (drum, toy cannon, kepi)? It's probably a boy. A book? Could be either.
• Accessories: Some types of jewelry can offer hints — earrings and brooches worn at the throat generally signify "female," but necklaces are tricky. Children of both sexes have worn coral necklaces as charms for centuries.
  
• Color: Before the 1930s, Americans generally considered red/pink to be a masculine color (think Mars) and blue to be a feminine color (think Virgin Mary). That said, there was not hard and fast rule on the color issue and it won't help you much unless you're looking at a painting or an actual garment. The Valentine Museum in Richmond had a fabulous exhibit on this subject a few years ago.
  
• Pattern: It would be a mistake to assume that only girls wore floral patterns in the 19th century. Still, if something is all-out floral and other signs point to girl, girl is a safe bet. On the flip side, little boys often wore tartans that evoked a martial style.
  
• Tunics: Sometimes, young boys went through an intermediate stage of dress — neither dresses nor full-on pants. See Prince Edward in the first painting (red belted tunic). Tunics often had a military flair win the form of buttons, belts, and trim. Other types of jackets worn by boys also have military overtones, such as the zouave jackets that became popular during the Civil War.
  

boy in tartan tunic, side-parted hair

I'm sure that people who are familiar with images from other eras could offer similar tips. I imagine the general principles are the same — look at hair, props, cut, etc. — but the specifics are slightly different.

The Gore Children (1755)

John Singleton Copley

Sarah and Frances hold flowers and have loose, flowing hair. John wears child-sized clothes in the style worn by adult men. Samuel's hair is confined and styled differently from his sisters' hair. He is also wearing red/pink and has a dog to mark his masculinity.

My grandfather, Benjamin Manfredo DeAngelis, 1921

D-Day +65 Years

I'm sure that many people will post commemorative essays on this, the 65th anniversary of D-Day. I will mark the day by looking through the LIFE photographs and watching Band of Brothers.

More here.

Breastfeeding Daguerreotypes

While reading Jill Lepore's Baby Food yesterday, I was reminded of the Schlesinger Library's small collection of beautiful daguerreotypes featuring breastfeeding women and their babies (ca. 1850-1860).

There are three images, but they are quite difficult to find (the "Daguerreotypes at Harvard" homepage is a mess). To see all three, go to this page and type "breastfeeding" into the first search box. The daguerreotypes should be results 3-5 on the first page of results.